


Statement Withdrawal

by taylor_tut



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fainting, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sick Character, Sickfic, Statement withdrawal, Whump, sick jonathan "jon" sims
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25214695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: I had a request on my tumblr for Jon feeling weak and faint and dizzy, so I decided to go with statement withdrawal for it. The whole Institute, particularly Daisy but even Martin pulls himself out of his lonely shell to come help eventually.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 265





	Statement Withdrawal

**Author's Note:**

> So, this author has POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) and this fic is very heavily inspired by the week I've been having to work through during a flare up lmao

“Jon’s going down again,” Basira calls when she sees him waver from across the hallway. She’s not going to get to him in time, but she hopes that perhaps someone closer might hear, and when it becomes clear that no one has, she hustles forward, glad he’s bought himself time by putting one hand against the wall so that she can ease him to the ground before he falls completely. “Easy, now, there you go,” she finds herself soothing, pushing his head between his knees. 

“Ngh,” he groans, a sound that she can tell comes out entirely against his will, “sorry.” 

She shakes her head. “Daisy went through it, too. It’s fine.”

Jon takes a few deep breaths before sitting upright completely, his eyelids fluttering like he might pass out (it wouldn’t be the first time), but he fights it and rests his head against the wall behind him. It's been days since he's taken a statement, even an old one, and he's only feeling worse with time.

“Daisy said it gets better,” she tries, and Jon snorts incredulously. 

“Right,” he says, “because she’s doing so well.” 

“I heard that,” Daisy says, rounding the corner with a glass of orange juice and a wet cloth. 

“Of course you did.” 

“And it does. Get better, I mean,” she says, pressing the cloth to the nape of his neck. “Though I don't think I was quite this bad off. Bit dizzy, bit shaky, but I never fainted.” 

“Honestly, I'm just glad it's more similar to withdrawal than starvation.” 

After a moment of deep breathing, Jon sits up with his head against the wall and nurses the orange juice slowly, sipping cautiously--Daisy knows the nausea associated with these near-fainting spells and doesn’t rush him. 

“Where were you trying to go?” she asks when he’s finished the small glass, and his cheeks redden. 

“I was,” he says quietly, avoiding eye contact, “just going to use the bathroom.” 

Pity, which she knows will only make him more embarrassed, blossoms in her chest. “Do you—”

“No,” he curtails sharply. Daisy nods, motioning to Basira to follow her away once they get Jon, now a bit steadier, to his feet. 

These days, the Institute is quiet. It’s been so for a while, since most of them are running agendas so different from one another that it’d be impossible to begin to find commonality enough to talk about work, and without Martin around to dote and chat, no one really bothers until the work day is finished. Things that are hard to talk about are often easy to drink about, and the bars Daisy, Melanie, and Basira frequent are usually loud enough that it’s not even noticeable that they’re not really socializing. 

Daisy has made the choice to turn off the telly in the break room, which had been an ever-present hum of chatter, and Basira no longer plays music from her phone while she’s working, all because they need to be able to hear if Jon falls somewhere. 

Finding him unconscious is much rarer now than it had been at the beginning, now that he can tell more easily the difference between a dizzy spell and a faint. What’s much more common is finding him sitting with his head between his knees or crouched double with his knees pulled to his chest, shivering with the bone-deep chills and pain of one of these episodes. When Daisy finds him during one of those, she plays The Archers to give him something to focus on. She doesn’t know what Basira does, but considering how difficult it is for Jon to string words together during them, she hopes that she doesn’t leave him alone. 

(Upon finding him draped in the blanket from Basira’s desk chair after one, however, she’s ashamed at herself for even thinking such a thing.) 

It’s the new normal, it seems. After over a week of things not getting better but not getting worse, they’re learning to manage. Keep Jon hydrated, make sure he eats regular but small meals, give him your chair when he enters a room breathless from walking down the hall to ask you about a file, don’t tell him anything you want him to remember unless he’s seated. 

More than anything, don’t mention it. They don’t mention when he looks pale and ill. When he faints and comes around, they ask if he’s hit his head, and if he says no, they pick up where they’d left off the conversation and wordlessly pass him a juice box. If they find him a lost mess in the hallway, they just roll up an office chair for him to sit in until he can collect himself and continue on with their own business. 

Everyone, regardless of their feelings of malice against Jon, is willing to give him those basic niceties, and though Daisy knows he’s miserable all the time from the way he’s always massaging his shoulders and neck and the fact that he’s taken up drinking coffee, the relative stability of his misery means that he’s not taking statements, and for that, everyone is happy. 

Everyone, it would seem, except Martin, who, in his total isolation, has not gotten the memo that Jon is poorly.

Daisy, whether through Hunt instincts or through proximity, hears Martin shout, and she bolts from her desk to the Archival room in seconds flat. 

Jon is lying prone on the floor in a full faint and Martin, having emerged from his office for the rare errand, unfortunately, has witnessed the whole thing. He’s crouched by Jon’s side, slapping the sides of his face in a motion Daisy never understood, with a look of panic over his features. 

Serves him right for hiding. 

“Martin,” she says sharply, grabbing his hands--Jon wakes groggy, and she imagines it might be unsettling to open his eyes to the man he’s secretly in love with slapping him in the face. 

“Jon just--just went down,” Martin cries in a tone so scared that it’s difficult not to feel badly for him. Daisy resists. 

“Yes, he’s been doing,” she replies. She takes Jon’s wrist and counts his pulse--far too high. “Give him a moment; he’ll come ‘round.” 

Martin frowns. It’s comforting to see an emotion on his face again, after so long only speaking to a stoic, unchanging mask. “What do you mean, he’s been doing? Is he ill?” 

“He’s quitting the statements,” Daisy replies. “So, in a way, he’s ill. Been having a rough go for over a week now. Can’t seem to shake this bit. Says it’s low blood pressure, like he’s fighting an infection, but hell if I know.” 

“Is he--I mean, he’ll be alright, right?” Martin asks. Daisy casts him a harsh glare. 

“If I say yes, are you going to disappear again?” 

He looks… hurt, but not quite like he’s going to argue, but she doesn’t have the chance to find out, because Jon wakes with a sharp gasp and a groan, then bends double to hold the back of his head, which he’d clearly hit in the fall. Daisy winces. 

“I’m going to get you some ice for that,” she promises, giving his arm a quick squeeze, “and some juice. Keep an eye on him, will you, Martin? I don’t like when he hits his head like that.” 

Jon stills, his breath still rapid with pain but forcing himself to stop curling inward in pain. He looks up, wincing at the lights, and seems… painfully confused, nearly incredulous when he sees him. 

“Martin,” he says. By this point, Daisy is accustomed to the feigned, over the top sort of professionalism that he adds to his tone in an attempt to combat the embarrassment after fainting, but Martin is clearly offended by it.

“Jon, why didn’t I know about this?” he asks, and his voice is gentle, so gentle, and warm in all the places it’s been icy for months. Jon shivers despite this. 

“I… haven’t seen you,” he defends. As much as Daisy wants to stay here and argue--she’s on Jon’s side, for once; Martin can’t avoid them all like the plague and then get bent out of shape when he doesn’t know what’s going on in their lives--she has to get the ice, and she trusts Jon to hold his own. 

By the time she returns just a few minutes later, she’s not sure whether they’ve talked at all. Jon doesn’t look upset like they’d fought, nor does he look as happy as he’d be if they’d had a good conversation together. 

However, when she kneels back down to give Jon the juice and ice, Martin doesn’t leave. Instead, he takes the ice pack and presses it to the back of Jon’s head where he’s hit it so that Jon can use both of his shaking hands to drink, and Daisy smiles. 

“I’m going to change the sheets on the cot,” she says once she’s confident that Martin isn’t an immediate flight risk. “Will you sit with him, or do you… have to get back?”

Martin sighs. “I should,” he admits, but the look behind Jon’s eyes has him thinking better of it. “But I can spare a few minutes.” 

She doesn’t give him a chance to change his mind before she’s hurrying to leave them alone, whether to talk or just to sit in the kind of silence that’s not so dreadfully lonely. And really, she’s not sure which would benefit either of them more, anyway. 


End file.
